


Locket and Key

by Rosage



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken | Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Fire Emblem: Shin Monshō no Nazo | Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 01:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5355461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosage/pseuds/Rosage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Palla never shared her mother with her sisters, and now it’s too late.  Minerva understands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Locket and Key

**Author's Note:**

> Contains spoilers for FE12, including endings.
> 
> Palla’s locket is from her supports with Est, and Minerva’s pendant is from her supports with Kris.

The portrait in Palla’s locket portrays a woman with green hair. It’s swept back in a ponytail that falls over her shoulder, which is clad in a simple amber dress, not the pauldrons she donned in battle. Mother did not take the same pride in her service to Macedon as Palla did—it was only a way to provide for and protect her daughters after losing her first husband, and in the end of the skirmish from which she never returned, she must not have been the sort of knight with no regrets. Then again, her commander was not Minerva. Palla assumes Mother would have liked her. 

Holding a bang next to the locket, she compares the hues. In some seasons the shade matches, though in winter Palla’s lacks the tinge of gold, betraying the blue Catria inherited from their father. Tonight autumn’s crispness is on the brink of sharpening, and only the lantern’s glow gives Palla the same shine. She drops her hair and draws an arm around herself, shivering. In the other room Minerva built a fire upon which Palla heated a drink sweetened with honey for the children, but after that she retired, suddenly needing time to herself.

Or maybe it wasn’t so sudden, not with Est’s disappearance. Palla receives regular messengers from Catria, but she can’t search herself without leaving Catria sister-less or abandoning Minerva and the convent, not to mention her part-time duties to Macedon herself. Some days all she can do is pray and speak to Mother about it, alone, in whispers. It shames her to have once taken comfort in the fact that it’s she that shares Mother’s hair—at times she used that to justify hiding the locket. Yet Mother’s steady blue eyes are Catria’s, and her bright smile is Est’s, and if Est never returns, if Catria disappears as well…

A shawl falls lightly over her shoulders, and they lurch. She snaps the locket shut and presses it to her chest, exhaling when she recognizes the smells of wyvern and smoke. 

“Is something wrong?” Minerva asks. Palla is perched on a barrel, having entered a storage room to minimize the chances of someone stumbling upon her. _Unless they were looking,_ she thinks. Still behind her, Minerva keeps her hands on Palla’s shoulders, and Palla leans back, trying to be grounded away from worries carried by wings. 

“No. Rather, many things are, but it will do no good to dwell.” As Palla can’t withhold a sigh regardless, Minerva’s hands begin to work at her shoulders. There’s nothing gentle about the movements, those of a warrior who knows another warrior’s body.

“It’s about Est, isn’t it?”

“There isn’t any point trying to hide it from you, is there?”

“Of course not. I could never relax when Maria was held hostage, you know. You were the one who had to keep me steady during those times.” Minerva’s boot scuffs against the floor; Palla can hear it knock the barrel. “Not that Est is being held again, but—”

“But we have no proof she isn’t,” Palla says, her voice resolutely neutral. “It’s just the sort of thing she’d do.” She didn’t want to think about other reasons Est might have disappeared, or about anyone who went in search of her. “After settling back down with a husband and business, too. She never quite grew up,” she says regardless, swallowing at her bitter tone.

Minerva’s hands pause. “Does your heart still…?” 

“No,” Palla says too quickly. “Or, not quite, but it’s found a home that won’t crush it.”

Minerva’s rubbing resumes, this time more slowly, but Palla can’t release the stiffness in her back. It’s still strange relying on Minerva like this. Among her other indulgences Palla has approached her then-princess to spar when she couldn’t contain her feelings, but that was a silent sort of passion, not this gentle support, these confessions.

“I’ll contact the capital and have the search efforts redoubled,” Minerva says as if the conversation hadn’t veered elsewhere. “I haven’t lost all influence, at least among the pegasus knights.”

“I wouldn’t imagine that anyone who has served under your command could resist an order from you.”

“Hm, is that so? I seem to recall finding crumbs on the bed of a child who wasn’t to have sweets.”

Her tone is light, but Palla flushes. Missing having someone to baby, she’d let her usual firmness lax. She tries to remember if Minerva used to tease like this, if the wars stole it from her or if she only learned after their conclusion.

Exclamations chorus from another room. They both halt to listen, hearing no signs of disaster. “Sister Lena and Maria are with them,” Minerva says. Palla nods. She’s more or less distracted until Minerva asks, “What were you holding earlier?”

Palla tenses, and the hands on her shoulders squeeze reflexively. Underneath the shawl she’s still clutching the locket, her thumb fingering the bump around the chain. It’s probably the reason she likes the feeling of armor, having always used metal for security.

If she says _nothing_ , Minerva will respect that, though if for some reason she demands to see it Palla will comply. But showing Minerva isn’t the same as sharing Mother with her sisters, so she slowly loosens her knuckles, lifting the locket. She does not remove it, and Minerva stops the massage to sit on a crate in front of her.

“It’s well-made. Is that the bump that’s always under your shirt?”

If not for the sober context, Palla could have teased at that, but she only nods. “It’s a memento of my mother’s. It contains a portrait of her, but I’ve never shown it to anybody, even my sisters.”

Were the light brighter and her head clearer, Palla could have interpreted the emotion that crosses Minerva’s face. “I’m sorry,” Palla says. “This must seem foolish.”

“No, it isn’t that. It’s…”

Carefully Minerva reaches into a pouch at her hip and pulls out a pendant. The pouch is such a common fixture that Palla stopped wondering what was in it, though she should have expected that Minerva with her strained heart would keep a token.

“This was a gift from my mother as well. The three of us received them, but Maria lost hers when she was taken, and…”

Without a word Palla sets her locket in her lap and reaches to take Minerva’s hands, stroking them while taking care not to touch the pendant. She doesn’t dare comment; Minerva must long for nothing more than to be able to share memories that Palla herself hoards. “You’ve done well to keep it,” she says instead, thinking of Minerva’s own captivity.

“I lost it once, but only by my own clumsiness.” Her gaze lowers to Palla’s lap, drawing her attention to the locket. She thinks now not only that Mother would like Minerva, but that Minerva would like her in return. The thought makes Palla’s chest tighten, and she lets go to tuck the locket safely away.

“I’ll introduce you to her, someday, if you’d like,” she concedes, silently pleading not to press. Minerva pockets her own token and stands.

“I look forward to it,” she says, bending to kiss Palla’s forehead before letting her be. Once alone, Palla pulls the locket back out and stares at green flecked with gold. She does not leave until the children have been sent to bed.


End file.
